


Rebirth

by robert_downey_jr



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Awakening, Dalish, F/M, Hurt, Rebirth, Saddness, Solas hurt my child, heart-ache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:24:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6918154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robert_downey_jr/pseuds/robert_downey_jr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Har'ael is known for her drawings and her botany. But her life takes a sharp turn once she meet Solas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebirth

Har’ael sketches could be found everywhere in Skyhold. They mostly were Leliana's rough drawings of plants she had discovered. Embrium sketches in Cullen's bookshelves, Felandris near shrine and Royal Elfroot in Josephine's office. She had compared nearly everyone in her inner circle to a plant. Her knowledge on herbs was impressive and there wasn't a day that she rambled on about some kind of plant.

 

And gardens in Skyhold was a scene of beauty. Josephine would lure nobility out there while she continued to impress them with their fortifications. You could find the happy, Dalish in the gardens, tending to her flowers, reading a book or even sketching to pass time. There were days that she didn’t come out from the gardens until the sun had set behind the mountains.

 

And her room… _her room_. No one dared to go in the room since the place was a maze of plants and sketches of them everywhere.  The place was paradise to botanists or healers. Flowerpots, and flowerbeds were scattered everywhere. Her balcony had managed to thrive against the harsh cold of Skyhold, thanks to her careful tending. Elfroot, Embrium, Witherstalk, Crystal Grace, whatever could be found in nature she had it in her room.

 

Other than her room and some parts of Skyhold, Solas's rotunda had become covered with them. No one noticed that Solas had kept every one. He kept them in order and filed them by their importance. Some days when he’d take breaks from his tomes, he’d find a sketch of hers and trace a finger around the etched lines. It didn’t take long before Har’ael would come bouncing in and he’d shove the paper in the book and give her his undivided attention.

 

As time passed Har'ael could be found inside Solas's rotunda. Whether it was lounging on his couch with a sketchbook in her lap or at his desk where he sat while he went on and on about his journeys into the Fade. She sat at the edge of his desk, enthralled at his every word. Her eyes glimmered like the stars you'd see after a storm. Curiosity shined in them but it was a matter of time before her eyes were shining with something other than interest.

 

After that, her sketches became more than flowers. Some were still drawn with beautiful intricacy. But you would start noticing that a man began to take up most of the room on those sketches. Each sharp and precise lines that defined a jawline, pointed ears, and cheekbones drawn so perfectly that even the greatest artists would drool with jealousy.

 

It was the clarity and the precision of this man that showed someone had spent hours thinking of them. Every detail on the fabrics he wore, the small stitching that was found on his sleeves, and a necklace that revealed each sharp point. Even the eyes, that had been drawn so delicately made the heart twist because no one could get such vibrancy unless they had dreamed about such a pair of eyes. An artist like Har'ael kept no secrets with such intimate drawings.

 

Portraits of flowers in full bloom appeared in the main hall, the library and of course, Solas’s rotunda. Each flower had its own color, own vibrancy that exploded onto each page. Har’ael’s hands were always stained with some paint she’d used the day before. Never once did Solas release that paint-stained hand of hers as they talked in the gardens or his study.

 

But after a while, when things for the Inquisition had gotten increasingly dangerous the sketches began to disappear. It wasn’t until after the events of Mythal’s Temple that the drawings had returned. Only this time they weren’t right. Color was drained from the drawings, there was no evidence of the breath-taking lively ones. Only flowers that had become wilted with leaves falling of their stems. Trees that had been stripped of their vibrant leaves and that was left barren and naked. Elfroots that had folded over themselves and that was a lifeless heap.

 

No happiness was found in these artworks. Only heart-ache and pain.

 

And amongst the graveyard of these artworks were small portraits of a man. This time, there hadn’t been any details in his frame as he held a hand out and away from a woman in the distance. She sat on her knees, hands raised in a begging silence while tears had fallen from her stained cheeks. Separation and heart-break were the titles of these drawings. No one dared to ask why the drawings had become dark. Nor did they ask about Har’ael’s face that had been wiped clean of her vallaslin.

 

Things only continued to worsen. After the Inquisition’s victory against Corypheus, Solas had disappeared from Skyhold. No letters, no guarantee of his return but just the fragments of Har’ael’s heart withering in his wake. Har’ael didn’t recover after it, either.

 

She had trashed her room. Tore drawings apart in small pieces, the plants she had saved in their glass vases had been shattered onto the floor. She had broken all the pots of the flowers that had long been withered and dead. Har’ael didn’t stop until everything around her was in shattered pieces but not even breaking things could heal the holes in her heart.

 

She collected all her artworks, plants, old sketchbooks and her paints and burned them in the courtyard. Har’ael didn’t ask for anyone to be beside while she torched the things that she loved. Sera stood beside her, not knowing what to say but offering a reassuring presence. Beside Sera was Dorian and then Vivienne. Dorian offered to start the fire, Vivienne was already sending orders to servants to clean her room of the mess she had made.

 

Har’ael stayed and watched each individual thing burn and turn to ash in the fire. She had sat on the stairs leading into the main hail and waited until everything had turned to ash. Until there was no evidence of the beautiful botanist with the bright smile and the green vallaslin. She waited until that woman she once knew had perished in that fire. Waited until every last memory of the man she loved—her first love—had been burned from her memory.

 

She had run her fingers along her face where her vallaslin had marked her freckled face. It throbbed under her touch. Maybe she had conjured up the pain since Solas’s extraction of the vallaslin had been painless. But each time she touched her naked face…it ached under her touch. She had cut off her long blonde locks after that fire. The hair had been a constant reminder of what Solas loved. Yet, he didn’t love her enough to stay.

 

Part of her old self had permanently left once she started the fire. But part of her knew, knew that the woman had died the day that Solas left her. The fire was only a means to an end—a finishing touch in destroying what she loved most. The only thing that remained was a shell of a woman that ached in silence and that frosted anything that thrived in her cold presence.

 

After the harshest two years of Har’ael’s life she had finally been reunited with Solas—at the cost of her own arm. Even he had been taken aback once he’d seen her short hair and hardened eyes. No longer the warm, grassy ones he’d fallen in love with. But ones that were hardened into emeralds, one gaze was sharp enough to kill. The long, golden waves of hair he’d ran his fingers through had been cut short above her ears. He stared into a stranger.

 

And yet, it was like time hadn’t escaped either of them. Har’ael could feel her chest rip open all over again once his eyes melted after looking at her. If it had been another time, another place and they weren’t who they were, Har’ael would have marveled at the scenery around them. But instead, she could only focus on the searing pain the mark inflicted in her arm.

 

The conversation was brief but Har’ael did everything she could to get to him. To reach out for the man she had fallen for two years ago. She begged him with tears brimming around her eyes to not leave her again, and that she couldn’t envision a life without him. Solas only told her that she needed to get used to the villain he’d become. He couldn’t allow her to see that man he was to become.

 

But even as she wept into his chest and pleaded for him to stay, she still promised that she’d redeem him. No matter the cost, she’d return to him and if that meant she’d have to crawl through the ends of the world then she’d do it. Har’ael promised to Solas, to herself, that she’d make Solas see the error of his ways and that she’d do everything in her power to warm the Dread Wolf’s heart.

 

She had returned to her clan after the Inquisition had disbanded. She’d returned with a heavier heart and a firmer grip on the world around her. She was quick to be given the responsibility as the clan’s Healer. The first ever non-mage healer in her clan and she’d never felt happier. Har’ael melted back into her old ways, collecting herbs and flowers, sketching animals that rested peacefully in the woods. She had almost returned to herself but remained feeling empty inside.

 

A rumor had flown through the clan that flowers grew where Har’ael had slept. Yet, she had planted nothing by her bed roll. By spring, elfroot had blossomed around her sleeping quarter, where she sketched her animals and even where she bathed in a secret spring. Members in the clan believed it was a sign from the Creators. They believed that the Creators had plans for Har’ael—big ones.

 

But to Har’ael, only she knew it was a sign from only one person. One person that still reached out but only from a distance. As much as part of her wanted to believe that this was his apology for abandoning her. She knew that this wasn’t an apology but a sign of rebirth. That she had bloomed into a warrior that would change the Dread Wolf. Come hell or high water, she’d change the Dread Wolf off his ways even if it meant tearing the world apart to get to him.


End file.
